‘Hell is better than what I personally witnessed,’ says Ben Ferencz, who was one of the American troops sent in to the Nazi death camps to collect vital evidence. ‘Dead bodies mingled with those alive. Piles of bones waiting to be buried. The smell of burning flesh. Those who were still alive pleading with their eyes.’ All of which we have heard many times before, perhaps too many times. But then Ferencz added, ‘SS men trying to flee, running away, and the inmates, those who could still walk, trying to chase them, grabbing at them.’ It was an unusual, vivid detail that captured the attention.
Ferencz was talking to Emma Barnett in her slot Eye of the Storm on Radio Five Live last week. Not that Barnett had much chance to say anything. Ferencz is extraordinary, at 97 talking as fast and as articulately as someone at least 30 years younger.
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